The Rotary Club of Kirkland held a meeting on June 5, 2023 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Kirkland for the annual Scholarship Awards Night ceremony and dinner.

President Amy Mutal called the meeting to order at 6:01 p.m.

President Amy led us in the pledge.

Attending were Pete Anderson, Bob Auslander, Scott Becker, Gary Cohn, David DeBois, Jocelyn Ellison, Doug Evanson, Rashmi Garimella, Mekonen Giorgis, Margie Glenn, Brandon Honcoop, Alan Hoviland, Isabelle Kalisa, Jim Meniketti, Amy Mutal, Joanne Primavera, Karin Quirk, Patti Smith, John Storbeck, Alice Volpe, and Rick Walter.

The Rotary Club of Kirkland awarded 10 of Juanita and Lake Washington high schools' students a total of $28,000 in scholarships.  Congratulations to all of the 2023 scholars!

 

Allan Diaz, Lake Washington High School, Business & Accounting Scholarship

 

 

Austin Picinich, Juanita High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

 

 

Benjamine Howard, Lake Washington High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

 

Drew Fialho, Lake Washington High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

 

 

Hailey Parent, Juanita High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

 

 

Lucas DeBlieck, Lake Washington High School, Step Scholarship

 

 

Makenzie Reynolds, Juanita High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

 

Nathan Coppinger, Juanita High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

 

Raphael Agbenu, Juanita High School, Technical Education Scholarship & Diversity Leadership Scholarship

 

 

Xavier Smith, Lake Washington High School, Rotary Scholarship

 

Thank you to Bob and the late Gail Auslander, Russ and Tricia Stromberg, Hutchison & Walter and Rick Walter, and Gary and Sue Cohn for contributing to expand the scholarship program.

Fellow Rotarians of the Bainbridge Island club have provided Kirkland a number of documents that provide tremendously helpful insight into the organization of the club's annual auction and rummage sale. Remembering that the Bainbridge club has been conducting this fundraiser for over 60 years and has very deep experience with the planning and execution, it is incredibly valuable to be able to create a picture in your mind's eye of how such an event appears and how it's managed.

There are four documents loaded into the ClubRunner organization documents area, and they are accessible using these links (your log-in is required). The orientation PowerPoint is broken into two documents because the original is too large to load to ClubRunner. Every club member will be better off having viewed these documents for a sense of how this club will need to conduct rummage sale business to be successful.

Kirkland Rotarians Jocelyn Reiter Ellison, Joanne Primavera, and Rick Walter were joined by Jocelyn's daughter Elena Sellers to promote Rotary's work during the city of Kirkland on June 2, 2023, ribbon cutting ceremony at the entrance of Marina Park at Kirkland Avenue and Lakeshore Plaza to unveil the installation of a new crosswalk modeled after the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride flag. The city provided Rotary a choice spot right by the new flag painted on the street.

Jocelyn supplied badges and temporary tattoos to hand out, and reports the most popular item was the Pride flag, of which the team gave out 100. The crowd waved those flags throughout the ceremony, which added a festive air, and the attendees enjoyed having them. Importantly, the team also handed out the postcards with information on the Great Rotary Kirkland Rummage Sale. Jocelyn noted that many people thanked Rotary for participating.

The Rotary Club of Kirkland's Annual Leadership Transition Dinner and Ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, June 20, 2023, and will be held at The Bravern Apartments in Bellevue. Cost for members and guests is $50, including beverages, and the REGISTRATION is now open on the club's website. The deadline for registering is midnight on June 11. As is traditional, past presidents of the club have been invited to join the membership for the dinner and the passing-of-the-gavel ceremony. Join your fellow Rotarians and past Rotarians to celebrate eight and half decades of leadership in service to the Kirkland community and the world through Rotary. As of this edition of The Spokesman, 10 members and four of their guests are registered.